Marine Technologies, LLC

Bridge Mate Operator Panels

The typical operator station has two operator panels equipped with buttons - the upper panel and the lower panel. The lower panel is composed of four different modules. The main button module has various buttons for general control of the system. The buttons have a texture and shape that depend on the function of the button. Buttons with more important functions, like change of system mode, will require a double-push to activate the function. The lower panel additionally consists of the joystick module, the heading selector module and the trackball module.

The upper panel, or the monitor panel, is made up of the operator monitor surrounded by a panel of buttons and status lights. The buttons located on the upper panel are related to functions and symbols that are reflected on the graphic user interface on the monitor. As an example, the buttons on the left side represent the thrusters on the vessel. Pushing one of these buttons will enable or disable a thruster from the DP system. These buttons are located next to the thruster symbols on the operator monitor which indicates the status of the different thrusters (unavailable, running, ready or in use).

The lower buttons represent the reference systems and are also linked to graphical status symbols on the monitor. Other buttons on this panel are linked to view settings on the monitor, as well as alarm status for the DP system.

The status lights on the very top of this panel represent the DP alarm system. The alarms are categorized into five groups. There is one status light for each computer alarm, power alarm, operation alarm, thruster alarm and sensor alarm. The alarm status lights will blink for any new alarms and stay constantly illuminated for alarms that have been acknowledged but are still active.

To the immediate right of the alarm status lights are three buttons related to the alarm system. The leftmost button will open/close the alarm list, which contains all the active alarms. The middle button is used to acknowledge alarms, whereas the rightmost button is used to silence an audible alarm without having to acknowledge it.